Abstract
This article characterizes the aims of a practice-based method of justification and explains why its form of “ideal theory” need to only assume that a group of agents “ideationally” endorse an aim or end. Our interpretation of a practice, according to its aims or ends, can thus be quite realistic about the selfish or corrupt motives of any particular agent. This helps to answer “selectorate theory” cynics that view rules (in trade, etc.) as equilibrium solutions among elites optimizing for their personal “political survival.” Even when that is so, reason can still have an audience in politics in the “ideational” recognition of values (e.g. as upheld in the classical theory of free trade).
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